


Five Wives and One Imperator

by furyroadmod



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Canon Backstory, Female-Centric, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 19:09:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5016856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furyroadmod/pseuds/furyroadmod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five girls are stolen, bought, and bred to become the wives of Immortan Joe. One woman must remember that she was once like these girls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Wives and One Imperator

**Author's Note:**

  * For [geckoholic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/gifts).



You're born in the shadow of the Citadel, to one of the desperate people living on scraps from a despot. Your mother weeps when they place you and your twin brother in her arms. It's almost impossible to provide for one child, it will certainly be impossible to provide for two children. 

But there's a solution. It is, perhaps, the reason the despot gives the people just enough to keep them alive. As soon as she can walk, your mother goes to the lift that ferries people and supplies up and down the cliff fortress. It's fiercely guarded, and the guards are cruel, but they take what will be of use to their master. 

Your mother offers you both to them, but they take only your brother. The despot has no use for girls until they are of breeding age. Your brother will be fed and sheltered, and he won't ever remember you or your mother. He'll grow up worshipping the despot and committing terrible crimes for him. Your mother won't ever see him again, and if you see him again, you don't recognize him beneath his war paint and howling fury. 

You grow up hungry. You grow up thirsty. You grow up dirty. You grow up waking at the slightest noise because it could be someone about to take your morsel of food, or someone looking for a respite from their own misery by worsening your misery. 

_Beautiful girl_ , your mother tells you. _So lucky._ They only take beautiful girls up into the Citadel. You will surely be one of them. You will be well fed and kept in comfort away from the punishingly hot sun and cruelly cold nights. You grow up looking forward to the day you'll be chosen to be a breeder.

Your body is still more a child's than a woman's when you bleed for the first time. But you are pretty, and you've bled, and when your mother shouts desperately at the guards, drawing their attention to you, they take you onto the lift. 

Every part of you is examined by a man who comments to another man like you aren't even there. You feel shame for the first time. You think it's good when you're judged good enough for the despot himself. You're taken to a room that must surely be the heaven people believed in. You don't understand why the other girls and women there are unhappy. 

You learn. You learn what price you have to pay for these luxuries. After the first time, you realize it's too high a price. You don't want to pay it again. You'd rather be back with your mother. 

But the door is locked, and there are guards waiting to stop you if you should manage to get out. You tell the despot you don't want to be a breeder anymore, but he calls you ungrateful and beats you. _You're my wife, my treasure, don't you see how lucky you are._

-

You're born in the backseat of a car. Your parents aren't quite road warriors, but they do what they have to in order to keep the car running. They drive from one end of the Wasteland to another, and find nothing but salt plains devoid of life. They set a course for a different direction, hoping to find somewhere they can live in relative safety.

One day, the car runs out of gasoline in the middle of nowhere. Your father's eyes are moist as he and your mother pack everything they can carry onto their backs. The car was shelter from sandstorms and the nighttime cold. It was a quick escape from predators of both the two-legged and the four-legged varieties. 

Your little family roams the Wasteland on foot for hundreds of days. You've never known anything else. You're contented until the day your family crosses paths with another wandering group who want your water. Your parents refuse to give it up. There is no telling when you'll find water again, and without water you'll all die. 

There's a scuffle, and when it's over, your mother's dead and your water has been stolen. You and your father keep walking. You keep walking and eventually you find swampy land where you dig and dig until it yields muddy water. 

Another wanderer tells your father about a warlord who's established order of a sort. This warlord has a deep groundwater well and he gives water for work. You and your father start walking towards this warlord's stronghold. 

The Citadel looks beautiful when you first spot it. You've never seen anything like it before. But it soon becomes clear the story you heard was exaggerated. The warlord controls a well, but there's no order, and to be chosen for work is to surrender yourself to slavery. 

But there's nowhere else to go, and your father is tired and broken. He doesn't have it in him to keep wandering without hope. You join the crowd around the lowering lift out of curiosity. 

You are filthy, and dressed in foul rags, but the guards have sharp eyes and know what to look for. You struggle, and cry out for your father, but you can't see him in the crowd. You're taken up, and bathed, and fed, but you're wary. 

You were right to be wary. The warlord calls you wife, and you have physical comforts you never dreamed of, but you know you are a slave.

-

You're born in the Citadel. Your mother is a breeder, communal property of the Immortan's lieutenants. There are other breeders, and other children to play with. You grow up happy.

The boys are taken away as soon as they can walk, and you never see them again, but you and the other girls are taught to read and write, and you keep occupied with stories of history that are as fairytales to you. _You're the guardians of civilization_ , the Immortan says, on one of his infrequent inspections. You don't understand why your mother and the other breeders look so bitter. 

One particular Imperator visits your mother regularly. She's told you that he's your father, but you've never had any interaction with him. You go to sleep to the sounds of them breeding one night, but later you're awakened by them talking. 

_You could get a car, and fuel and supplies,_ your mother says. _You could take us far away from here._

 _It's good here,_ the man replies. _I don't understand why you're not contented. You have everything you could want._

 _I don't want my daughter to have to spread her legs for every man Immortan Joe sends up here. How could you want that life for your own daughter?_ Your mother starts to cry.

You hear the man get up and leave without answering her. You know what breeders do, and you've always taken it for granted that you'll be one when you're old enough. You've never considered that it's something shameful and degraded the way your mother has spoken of it tonight. The Immortan says _you keep the human race alive._

You mull over what you heard for days, but you don't talk to your mother about it. You know instinctively it's a forbidden topic. 

Your mother weeps when you bleed for the first time, but you are excited to be a woman now. Not even the thorough examination by the Organic Mechanic fazes you. _Perfectly healthy,_ he declares. _Pretty too._

The Immortan himself comes to look at you. _Yes, good,_ he says. _It'll be a few years before she can be bred safely._ He's not talking to you. You might as well not even be there, except as a thing for him to admire. You're starting to understand why your mother wept for you. 

_Boss, leave her here and somebody's liable to forget himself and pluck your little flower._

_Take her to the vault._

And just like that you become the wife of a man who never even asked your name.

-

You're born in a hamlet somewhere. There's a well deep enough to provide water for farming. It isn't much, but just enough grows to keep a few families fed. Your family has a small flock of chickens, which makes you the richest people you know. A travelling History Man is paid an egg a day, for three days, to tell you and the other children his stories.

It's a bad day when the old roster kills the young roster, and a worse one when he dies himself of his injuries. Everything goes wrong after that. A swarm of locusts destroys all the crops. Your mother sells the hens, and when there's no one who can buy the rest, she cooks them one by one. You're starving, but you eat like the kings of old for a few days. 

A caravan of people on their way to attempt crossing the great salt flats pass through the hamlet. They want to stock up on water, but your uncle demands payment. There's an argument that turns heated. Residents and travelers are both desperate. Guns are drawn, and shots are fired. People die, including your uncle. 

The next batch of crops yield a meager harvest, and the one after that is even poorer. The soil is depleted, and there's not enough with which to fertilize it. Some people pack up and leave to look for somewhere else. But your family won't leave.

Then the well begins to dry up. When there's no denying it, your family loads the car with everything you can fit into, and strap on top of, it. You pray you'll make it someplace before the gasoline runs out.

You find land that looks like it was once inhabited, and you settle and try to start again. However, when the harvest is ready, you find out why the previous occupants abandoned it. Raiders come and take everything. You have guns, but no bullets for the guns. You cry tears of bitter frustration as you watch them leave with the fruits of your hard labor. 

Your mother decides the family won't stay here and work to feed thieves. You set out on the road, and no more than a handful of days past before you encounter armed bandits again. These thieves steal your very bodies. They bind you and take you back to their home base. 

_We brought back some new breeders and blood bags,_ they say. Once they've cleaned you up, and examined you in humiliating detail, they decide you're good enough for their leader. They tell you he's a god, and when you see only a sick old man, you laugh. 

He never forgets that you laughed at him. You don't have to accuse him with angry words. You let your contempt show in your eyes and in the twist of your mouth. You know him for what he is, and he hates you for it.

-

You’re born in Gas Town. You’re a friendly child, despite the squalor and meanness of your life. You wave at the People Eater as his limousine drives pass one day, and, by chance, he spots you. He is charmed and he decides you will make a nice pet. Your mother weeps, but one does not deny the lord of Gas Town, and what he offers in trade will keep your sisters and brothers fed for a long time.

You miss your mother and your siblings at first, but you quickly forget about them. You are well fed and cared for, and you spend your days playing with his other pets. Your innocent antics amuse him, and he pats you on the head and gives you treats. You think he’s a kind man, and you don’t understand why the older boys are so sad and why they sometimes try to run away. The ones who try to run never succeed, but they’re never seen again either.

You understand more as you grow up. You’re glad to be a girl. But a teenage girl isn’t as good a pet as a sweet-natured toddler, and the People Eater is bored with you. You’ve become only another mouth to feed. He is an opportunist, and he figures out a way to rid himself of you and curry favor with his master, for while he governs Gas Town, he answers to another.

The Immortan is a larger-than-life figure, his name mostly invoked by the cadre of savage soldiers who protect the refinery and enforce the People Eater’s will. You weren’t sure Immortan Joe was real, but one day the war rig that brings clean water to Gas Town and takes gasoline back to the Citadel takes you as well. The driver seats you beside her, but she doesn’t talk to you, or respond to your attempts to make friends.

You recognize the look on the faces of the older girls introduced to you as the Immortan’s wives. But you tell yourself anything is better than being one of the starving wretches you saw huddled below the Citadel. You are young, and you don’t know better yet.

-

You are born in the Green Place of the Many Mothers. You are the daughter of Mary Jo Bassa, and the Initiate Daughter of K.T. Concannon of the clan Swaddle Dog.

You try to forget what happens. You succeed. You can’t remember some days.

You are an Imperator of the Citadel, a trusted lieutenant of Immortan Joe. You have survived, and, by some measures, you have thrived. But it has come at a high cost. You have done things that shame the memory of your mothers. You tell yourself you had no choice. You know it was true once, but you also know it’s no longer true.

Every time you leave the Citadel could be the last time. You drive the war rig now. It’s stocked with food, water, and extra gasoline. You can drive away and never look back. You can drive away and never come back. You can go home. But something inside you always stops you.

You realize what it is one day. It’s shame. You can’t go home and face the Many Mothers. You are certain they would see what you have become and turn away from you. You have to redeem yourself. You have to become a woman the Many Mothers will be proud to call daughter.


End file.
